An armed force of 1,000 people, immigrants of more than 1,000 people, plus a large amount of supplies and equipment, this is the lineup that is about to go from the Sanya base camp to the Ambuna Islands. @頂@点@小@说, in order to ensure the one-time delivery of personnel and materials, the Ministry of Shipping needed to mobilize more than 30 transport ships to undertake this mission, which was also a rare scale in the ocean-going fleet dispatched by the Ministry of Shipping since the Annam Civil War.

However, this is not all that the Executive Committee intends to devote to the region, and in addition to the army and immigrants, the Navy will also increase its investment in the local maritime defense. On the basis of the original two "Exploratory-class" warships, four warships of the same class will be added to the existing two "Exploration Class" warships to ensure that the local area will not have to blindly retreat inland for passive defense when it is attacked from the sea. After the completion of the renovation and expansion of the local port and wharf, it is very likely that the Central Military Commission will deploy one or two "expedition-class" warships with a larger tonnage.

As for the "Majesty-class" warships, which are used as flagships in various fleets, the requirements for port conditions and comprehensive supply and maintenance capabilities are much higher; Ambuna Island is limited by objective conditions, and it is difficult for it to meet the standards required by the navy, and the military can only deploy them to the Cam Ranh Bay military base in Annam, and then need to be sent to the South China Sea to carry out combat missions in wartime.

In mid-August, news finally came from Fujian that negotiations between the local government and the East India Company had broken down, and as the Executive Committee had predicted, the Dutch had rejected any form of reparations and promises, and remained very tough. Although this may not be good news for the Fujian government, which does not want to continue fighting, it is exactly the result that the Haihan side wants. Calculating the time, it was estimated that it had been many days since the ship that had set off for Batavia to report the news, and Haihan also entrusted the Zhan family, who had trade relations with the East India Company, to Batavia with a sternly worded diplomatic letter and deliver it to the top management of the East India Company.

Five days after the departure of the fleet of the Zhan family, the huge fleet led by Roger also set sail from the military wharf of Shengli Port and the immigration wharf of Sanya at the same time. The two fleets will rendezvous off the coast of Sanya, and then make a simple sea formation before heading south together to the Ambuna Islands. Due to the size of the fleet, it had to stop at least two ports off the coast of Annam for replenishment, and it would take about 20 days to reach the Ambuna Islands. Until then, the Mushabai and Annan militia troops stationed there still had to rely on themselves to organize their defenses.

Fortunately, however, the headquarters of the East India Company in Batavia was in the midst of a bitter dispute over the military operations organized by the company.

In late June, a convoy originally sent to search for missing merchant ships ran into the main owner in the Natuna Islands, and an armed conflict broke out. The flotilla under the command of senior officers Spikes and Brower fought relatively smoothly at first, carrying out a landing operation in the face of the enemy's artillery fire and successfully breaking through the enemy's coastal fort defenses. Just when they thought they could wipe out the pirates of unknown origin and retake Natuna, the tide of battle turned sharply.

The Dutch army, which had gained superiority in the amphibious landing operation, was so defeated by its opponent in the positional battle besieging the island town that it could not hold its head up. Brouwer himself was killed in the raid on the town, which was one of the main reasons for the later rout of the Dutch army. In the end, the fleet that fled the area was no longer able to launch a second round of attacks, so it could only divide into two routes at sea, one led by Van Longen, and still head north to Dayuan Port. On the other hand, the remnants of Spikes' defeated army returned to Batavia and reported the battle to the company.

Since entering the Far East, the East India Company's armed fleet has been victorious in most of the conflicts, which is the fundamental reason for the rapid expansion of the company's colonies in just over a decade. Even if the Ming army was defeated in Penghu during the Apocalypse, it was because the difference in strength between the two sides was too great, and after resisting for half a year, it was almost exhausted before it had to retreat. However, the vast majority of the board of directors found it difficult for a well-organized, well-trained, and high-ranking armed force to be defeated on Natuna Island by a group of pirates who had come out of nowhere, and the result could be described as a fiasco.

In Spikes' description, the pirates are described as a "well-trained army" armed with more guns than even the armed fleet, and judging by the state of the fortifications they have built on the island, they are not going to loot and leave, but are going to stay in the area for a long time.

Such a description also caused an uproar in the board of directors, and since the East India Company had taken the island a few years earlier, no foreign force had ever attacked the local idea, and even the Portuguese, who had not been so aggressive, did not see the Natuna Islands as a target for contention. It's not that the Portuguese can't take this place, in fact, the local defense force is not strong, and it can barely protect itself from pirates, the real reason is that the port conditions of this place are limited, even if it is captured, it cannot be developed and built on a large scale, and there is no natural danger to defend, and the strategic value is relatively limited.

However, this group of pirates of unknown origin did not seem to have such an awareness, and not only quietly captured the local ports and towns, but also carried out a large-scale project - according to Spikes, the local fortifications would take at least a thousand laborers more than a month to build, and this amount of work is the objective reason why there have been no decent fortifications in the area for many years.

It has to be said that Spikes's inference is still based on certain facts, and it is also more consistent with the time when Dutch merchant ships began to disappear on this shipping lane, and the credibility is quite high. However, what the company's top brass could not accept was that the armed fleet, which represented the company's combat effectiveness, would be defeated by a group of pirates, and Spikes' account of the battle seemed to have quite a few holes.

For example, Spikes claimed that the pirates were well equipped, even more than their own armed forces, but as far as the East India Company knew, no pirate in the Far East had such weapons. Even the Eighteen Zhi, which is known as the first in the Far East along the coast of the Ming Dynasty, only has a large number of ships, and the level of weapons and equipment alone is far inferior to the armed forces of the East India Company. As for the pirate armament on the South Asian side, it is far less than the Eighteen Zhi, and it is often a group of ragged pirates who dare to go to sea to rob with a pile of broken copper and iron, and the senior management of the company will never believe that the South Asian pirates with generally low strength have the ability to defeat the armed forces of the East India Company.

Of course, Spikes later added an important piece of information, that is, he believed that this group of pirates should be the same group of people who attacked Daming Qiongzhou Island last year, that is, the same armed force formed by the remnants of the former Annan dynasty. Many of these people were military soldiers before they changed careers, and their military skills were far from being comparable to those of ordinary pirates, and they also had some access to a large number of standard weapons. After being driven out of Qiongzhou Island by the combined forces of Haihan and Ming last year, it is likely that this group chose to go south to find another place to stay, and the Natuna Islands unfortunately fell into their plan.

As for the weapons at their disposal, it is also easy to explain on the basis of this inference. As we all know, the Portuguese and the Haihan people entrenched on Qiongzhou Island are both well-known arms dealers, and the weapons they have recently sold to Annam and Daming are not a small amount, and it is reasonable that some of them have flowed into the hands of pirates - maybe they sold them directly to pirates, after all, this kind of thing is not new, and a considerable part of the standard weapons in the hands of Eighteen Zhi are provided by the East India Company.

However, this inference is based on Spikes' own thoughts, and there is no substantial evidence to prove its authenticity, and the soldiers have not even been able to retrieve a prisoner from the island to obtain a confession. As a result, most of the company's board of directors were still skeptical, but what they didn't know was that Spikes had come up with an inference that was as close to the truth as possible.

Indeed, a considerable number of the members of the local army led by Mushabai had participated in the previous year's operation to burn the prairies, and they were also playing the role of pirates from Annam. It is worth mentioning that when this experience of playing a pirate was applied to the Ambuna Islands again after the post-war summary, the acting skills of the combatants were generally improved. At that time, the first Dutch on the island were captured, and few doubted the identity of the pirates who had suddenly appeared.

Even if this capability could be justified, Spikes was unable to explain to the Board why the pirates had chosen the Natuna Islands, a lonely part of the South China Sea, as their long-term base. You must know that the local people can't even produce their own food, and they have to rely on transporting supplies from outside for a certain time. The East India Company was able to maintain this supply point because of its fleet of ships plying this route all year round, transporting food and supplies to the island from the outside on the one hand, and replenishing fresh water, fruits and vegetables on the other.

The island has always maintained a population size of three to four thousand people, and it is precisely because the island's self-production level and external supply capacity are limited, which cannot support more people to settle down for a long time. If the pirates did choose Natuna Island as their den, they would face the same dilemma unless they could afford to resupply them from a large distance, or if they could reclaim a lot of farmland on the island to grow food crops. But if they want to organize large-scale farming to make ends meet, why should these people become pirates?

Another point that Spikes could not explain was that, in the state of affairs he had spoken, the number of pirates occupying the area was at least about five to eight hundred, and so many men and materials were coming across the sea, so where was their fleet?

Spikes could only guess that the fleet might have been out to sea to catch new prey, but this explanation raises a new question: how effective will this pirate force be if the pirates who stayed on the island to watch over their homes during the main raids were so strong? If even pirates could manage such an army, then what had the East India Company been doing all these years?

Even Governor Cohen, who had always trusted Spikes, could no longer ignore the loopholes and contradictions in his description. When Governor Cohen sternly asked Spikes if he had lied about the military situation, Spikes could only cry out that he had been wronged, and claimed that someone could testify against him—Van Longen had sailed north with the rest of his merchant ship to Dayuan Harbor, and when he returned, the Board of Directors could ask him to see if the situation was as he had described.

However, Van Longen will not be able to return to Batavia until the end of August or early September, which will have to be done on a smooth road. After much deliberation, the Board decided not to impose punitive measures on Spikes for the time being, but in view of the suspiciousness of his description, Governor Cohen announced that he would be placed under house arrest until Van Longen returned to Batavia and confirmed his claims.

Although it was not clear what happened to the Natuna Islands in the end, the defeat still attracted the attention of the board of directors of the East India Company. One of the most important pieces of information in Spikes' description is that the company's previous missing sailboats have all appeared in the local harbor - of course, the people on board have disappeared without a trace, and only an empty hull with the rudder removed and unable to sail. Obviously, the missing sailing ships before this were the hands of these people, and there is no need to search for them all over the world.

A few sailboats are not a big deal, but pirates have begun to threaten the safety of the South China Sea waterways, and their strength is not to be underestimated, which has to be taken seriously by the board of directors. There is no doubt that this cancer must be eliminated as much as possible, otherwise the company's maritime trade in Northeast Asia will also be greatly affected in the future. But how to start has become a difficult problem for everyone to argue endlessly.

Some people thought that they should wait for Van Longen to come back and confirm that Spikes's claims were true before they could make a corresponding battle plan, while others thought that they had to do everything they could, otherwise it would be even more difficult to eradicate the pirates on the island.